Movie update: OLDBOY Malaysia release postponed to next year

Release of “Oldboy” 2013 remake in Malaysia is now pushed to 2014

Nusantara Edaran Filem (NEF), the Malaysian distributor of Spike Lee’s remake of the Korean hit Oldboy, had previously announced on their Facebook Page that the film will be released on October 24th 2013 before re-announcing again later that it’ll be in cinemas on November 28th 2013. Then after it was screened to the local media, the film is apparently rescheduled to January 9th 2014 without any sort of clarification to the public. I have made a casual enquiry about it on their Facebook Page a week ago but they have yet to post a reponse (but then again, the other inquiries before me were also unanswered).

From how I see it, this delay of film’s release could probably only mean that our beloved board of film censorship intends to cut a few more scenes ’cause as of today, the movie still seems to be unrated. But as usual, I believe it’s gonna be rated ’18’ in the end with plenty of sequences chopped and removed. Oh yes, the Malaysian censorship bullshit continues and poor NEF have no choice but to comply.

We’ve seen its trailers at local cinemas so that means that NEF had probably spent to market the movie. But with more negative reviews than positive ones pouring in, many local moviegoers may be disinterested by the time it finally comes out here (it will also be available on Torrent by then, if you know what I mean). There’s also the possibility of boycott by some due to the controversy between Spike Lee and the actual poster designer of the film. So quite obviously, this postponement does not help NEF or the film at all.

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But surely, however, the producers would be desperate to have Oldboy released in every country possible since it has already flopped miserably in the US box office, making back only a bit over $1.3 million out of the film’s $30 million budget thus far. I guess that’s what you get for remaking an awesome film that didn’t need to be remade.